New Haven, Hamden to Require People to Wear Face Masks in Public Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

Published April 16, 2020•Updated on April 16, 2020 at 3:15 pm

NBCUniversal, Inc.

While Gov. Ned Lamont is urging people statewide to wear masks in public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the mayors of New Haven and Hamden have taken it a step farther to require people to wear facemasks in public starting Friday.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said Wednesday that he has issued an emergency order that goes into effect on Friday morning, requiring people to use facemasks in essential retail businesses, including grocery stores, big-box stores, restaurants, pharmacies, gas stations, convenience stores and package stores.

Two Connecticut cities are requiring the wearing of face coverings in public.

Local

Hamden Mayor Curt
Balzano Leng’s emergency order goes into effect at 5 a.m. Friday and orders the
public to use of face at retail businesses, including grocery stores and
big-box stores or wholesale clubs that also sell food or beverages; at restaurants
and hotels where food is prepared; at pharmacies; gas stations; convenience
stores; and liquor stores.

Leng said proprietors could
refuse customers from entering if they do not have a face covering.

New Haven and Hamden
are also requiring owners of essential retail businesses to provide facemasks
to all workers.

Elicker said people
shouldn’t feel any need to purchase a mask. They can use cloth masks, such as a
towel, handkerchief or other cloth covering.

Leng urged people to
ensure that medical masks and first responder masks are available for the
people who need them to keep us safe and well.

He said all workers
required to wear these face coverings must wash any reusable face coverings at
least once a day. Single-use face coverings must be properly discarded into
trash receptacles and disposed of.

“Facial coverings do
not make people safe from exposure to the Coronavirus. Residents should not in
any way consider this order as a tool to go out more often at a time when
shelter in place is the very best way to slow and eventually end the spread of
this virus,” Leng, said in a statement “Instead, it’s an added tool to keep
people safe when they have an essential need and must go out and into a setting
with other people where social distancing isn’t guaranteed.”

People are urged to
continue stay at least six feet away from others.

“This is not our
normal behavior, but for the sake of public health and safety -- to save lives, it is not too much to ask,”
Leng said in a statement. We all have a friend or loved one who is in a high-risk
category or is immunocompromised. Let’s make the smart decisions together as a
community and take the precautions needed to protect those close to us, as well
as our friends and neighbors.”